Amazon's cloud services behemoth, Amazon AWS is one of the biggest things on the IT scene, scooping up vast amounts of business with a sophisticated palette of easy to use and generally very cost-competitive offerings.

Cyber attacks on ICS are rising sharply, so preparing assets to operate safely in an IIoT world easily justifies the cost of a Design Architecture Review (DAR). The ICS-CERT even offers a free DAR to those operating critical infrastructure assets.

At the IIC's September Industrial Internet of Things Forum in Cambridge, MA, a panel of leaders from Xively by LogMeIn, PrismTech, Datawatch and PTC had a lively discussion about the current state of “things” and how that relates to the future of manufacturing.

Getting everything connected to make your factory as smart as it can be is a daunting task. And then, exactly what to do with all that data lurking out in the fog? One key: Do the processing closer to the data source.

Most sensors require more consistent power than batteries, solar or wireless sources can provide. One possible solution is PoE, which Emerson says enables wireless connection without extra wired power infrastructure.